GHSA-hw4v-5x4h-c3xm is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) Improper Input Validation vulnerability in pallet-ethereum. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-hw4v-5x4h-c3xm is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Transaction validity oversight in pallet-ethereum
Real-World Exposure
pallet-ethereumReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
A bug in pallet-ethereum can cause invalid transactions to be included in the Ethereum block state in pallet-ethereum due to not validating the input data size. Any invalid transactions included this way have no possibility to alter the internal Ethereum or Substrate state. The transaction will appear to have be included, but is of no effect as it is rejected by the EVM engine. The impact is further limited by Substrate extrinsic size constraints.
Patches
Patches are applied in PR #465.
Workarounds
None.
References
Patch PR: https://github.com/paritytech/frontier/pull/465
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
- Open an issue in the Frontier repo
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | pallet-ethereum | all versions | No fix |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for pallet-ethereum. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Remediation status
No patched version of pallet-ethereum has shipped for GHSA-hw4v-5x4h-c3xm yet. Where your build allows, override or pin the dependency away from the vulnerable range, and apply any maintainer-recommended mitigation.
Mitigate without a patch
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether GHSA-hw4v-5x4h-c3xm is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to GHSA-hw4v-5x4h-c3xm. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-hw4v-5x4h-c3xm in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-hw4v-5x4h-c3xm across crates.io dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.